The Wandering Jew — Volume 11 eBook

For the first time, she feels an unconquerable sense
of lassitude. For the first time, her feet begin
to fail her. For the first time, she, who traversed,
with firm and equal footsteps, the moving lava of torrid
deserts, while whole caravans were buried in drifts
of fiery sand—­who passed, with steady and
disdainful tread, over the eternal snows of Arctic
regions, over icy solitudes, in which no other human
being could live—­who had been spared by
the devouring flames of conflagrations, and by the
impetuous waters of torrents—­she, in brief,
who for centuries had had nothing in common with humanity—­for
the first time suffers mortal pain.

Her feet bleed, her limbs ache with fatigue, she is
devoured by burning thirst. She feels these infirmities,
yet scarcely dares to believe them real. Her
joy would be too immense! But now, her throat
becomes dry, contracted, all on fire. She sees
the stream, and throws herself on her knees, to quench
her thirst in that crystal current, transparent as
a mirror. What happens then? Hardly have
her fevered lips touched the fresh, pure water, than,
still kneeling, supported on her hands, she suddenly
ceases to drink, and gazes eagerly on the limpid stream.
Forgetting the thirst which devours her, she utters
a loud cry—­a cry of deep, earnest, religious
joy, like a note of praise and infinite gratitude
to heaven. In that deep mirror, she perceives
that she has grown older.

In a few days, a few hours, a few minutes, perhaps
in a single second, she has attained the maturity
of age. She, who for more than eighteen centuries
has been as a woman of twenty, carrying through successive
generations the load of her imperishable youth—­she
has grown old, and may, perhaps, at length, hope to
die. Every minute of her life may now bring her
nearer to the last home! Transported by that ineffable
hope, she rises, and lifts her eyes to heaven, clasping
her hands in an attitude of fervent prayer. Then
her eyes rest on the tall statue of stone, representing
St. John. The head, which the martyr carries in
his hand, seems, from beneath its half-closed granite
eyelid, to cast upon the Wandering Jewess a glance
of commiseration and pity. And it was she, Herodias
who, in the cruel intoxication of a pagan festival,
demanded the murder of the saint! And it is at
the foot of the martyr’s image, that, for the
first time, the immortality, which weighed on her for
so many centuries, seems likely to find a term!

“Oh, impenetrable mystery! oh, divine hope!”
she cries. “The wrath of heaven is at length
appeased. The hand of the Lord brings me to the
feet of the blessed martyr, and I begin once more
to feel myself a human creature. And yet it was
to avenge his death, that the same heaven condemned
me to eternal wanderings!

“Oh, Lord! grant that I may not be the only
one forgiven. May he—­the artisan,
who like me, daughter of a king, wanders on for centuries—­likewise
hope to reach the end of that immense journey!